Have You Visited the Presbyterian Historical Society Website Lately?

It’s not just for Records Management! Collections, online exhibits and online resources have all been revamped in the past year or so. The Library Catalogue, “Calvin,” and the Sheppard Database are searchable online. (Note that Calvin does NOT describe most materials catalogued by the society before 1980.) The Sheppard database is a research tool that searches across multiple PHS databases: including Archives; the Vertical Files (Foreign Missionary, Biographical, Congregation and Other Organization, Hall’s Index of American Presbyterian Congregations); the Museum database and the Communion Tokens database.

Of particular interest are the Pearl Digital Collections, a digital repository named in honor of Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck. The daughter of Presbyterian missionaries, Buck served as a missionary to China from 1914 to 1933. Featured collections here include Indigenous Peoples of North America, Religious News Service photographs, African American History, LGBTQIA+ History, Presbyterian Women, Korea Mission History, and the Katie G. Cannon Collection.

Katie Geneva Cannon was the first Black woman ordained a minister of word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church. She was born in 1950 in the Fisher Town neighborhood of Kannapolis, N.C., one of the seven children of Corine and Esau Cannon. She graduated from Barber-Scotia College (Concord, N.C.), completed a Doctor of Divinity at Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, and was the first African American to complete a Doctor of Philosophy at Union Theological Seminary (New York, N.Y.). She was ordained by the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Presbytery of Catawba in 1974. A founding voice in Womanist theology, Cannon taught at Temple University, and Union Presbyterian Seminary (Richmond, Va.). In 2018 she founded the Center for Womanist Ethics at Union in Richmond; she died August 8, 2018. This collection represents in a single online location personal records of Katie's that she intended to distribute among Presbyterian Historical Society, Union Presbyterian Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary in New York.

It’s important to keep in mind, as always, that PHS collections rely on voluntary contributions, in some cases, from the churches and presbyteries in the PC(USA). If you’re looking for a baptism record from before 1980, you may need to contact the staff for more assistance. Click HERE to see what types of reference services are available!